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That’s when I started noticing a theme.
Half her clothes had ducks on them.
On the bookshelf, there were easily a dozen books withducksin their titles.
On her nightstand sat a small duck lamp.
Finally, the seriousness of this current plight hit me. We had ducks for every fucking occasion, and if I didn’t find the bath duck, then I was bloody screwed.
I blew out a breath, pinching my eyes shut.
Fuck. I needed to go read that fucking binder.
“Hang on,” I told her. “I’ll be right back.”
Not that Mira cared. She was too busy nursing a broken heart because I didn’t know where the fucking bath duck was.
When I got downstairs to the kitchen, I set my hands on my hips and stared down the binders for a while.
I could practically hear Zoe’s voice in my head.
I told you so.
My jaw clenched.
Mira’s crying ratcheted up a decibel, and I imagined that at this point, all the neighbors could hear too. I’d be damned if scary Rosa sent Zoe a text telling her about the screams emanating from within these four walls.
I plucked the first binder up, my grim mood settling deeper inside my chest when I saw the alphabetized tabs.
Bath routine.
I flipped to it. The first fucking bullet point had me glaring at the page.
Mira will not take a bath without her bath ducky. I always keep it underneath the sink in the bathroom, because if she sees it before bathtime, she’ll try to hide it somewhere in her room so that she can sleep with it.
I slammed the binder shut with a weighty exhale and tossed it onto the counter, then bounded back up the stairs.
In the bathroom, I yanked open the cabinet door.
Salvation came in the form of a small rubber duck wearing a pink rain hat.
“Look what I found!” I yelled.
Her crying lessened, just for a moment, and when I walked across the hall, she sniffled piteously.
“You find it?” she asked, hiccuping around the words.
I held it out. “I found it.”
Mira scrambled to her feet and ran across the room, stark naked and red-faced from crying, then plucked the toy from my hand and headed straight for the bathroom.
I exhaled heavily.
Thank fuck.
